Piston engined helicopters...

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TheGreenGoblin
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Piston engined helicopters...

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Feb 24, 2022 2:21 pm

Being in morose humour today, I wasn't apt to do much in the way of work so I have idly been reading the list of piston-engined helicopters that have been developed over the years, and am amazed, how many there are single, twin and four engined.

I am certain these lists aren't definitive but they make for an interesting read:

Single-engined piston Helicopters.

Twin-engined piston helicopters

Four-engined piston helicopters
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Re: Piston engined helicopters...

#2 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Feb 24, 2022 2:26 pm

Would you trust your life to this machine (for example)

Adams-Wilson Hobbycopter.JPG
?
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Re: Piston engined helicopters...

#3 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Feb 24, 2022 3:19 pm

Anybody care to take a guess where this helicopter was styled, designed and built?

Twas not a commercial success

Aer Lualdi L-55.JPG
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Re: Piston engined helicopters...

#4 Post by k3k3 » Thu Feb 24, 2022 4:48 pm

I'd guess Poland, they build some wierd and ugly macines.

Edit: Just looked at the link, I was wrong.

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Re: Piston engined helicopters...

#5 Post by bob2s » Thu Feb 24, 2022 9:39 pm

Going by the M/R I would say that Hiller had something to do with the design,or Hiller components were used.

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Re: Piston engined helicopters...

#6 Post by CharlieOneSix » Thu Feb 24, 2022 11:23 pm

One helicopter missing from the twin piston list is the 2 x RR Continental powered Cierva Grasshopper. I saw this at Redhill sometime around 1969/70. I mentioned Ken Reed in a different thread and how he landed a R4-B on the battleship Vanguard in 1947. Ken was also the test pilot on the Grasshopper. There were three protoypes built and the first, G-AWRP, can be seen in The Helicopter Museum in Weston-Super-Mare. No production models were built and the project was abandoned in 1975. It's not immediately obvious from this photo that there were contra-rotating main rotors and no tail rotor.
Cierva_Grasshopper.JPG
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Re: Piston engined helicopters...

#7 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Feb 26, 2022 2:38 pm

CharlieOneSix wrote:
Thu Feb 24, 2022 11:23 pm
One helicopter missing from the twin piston list is the 2 x RR Continental powered Cierva Grasshopper. I saw this at Redhill sometime around 1969/70. I mentioned Ken Reed in a different thread and how he landed a R4-B on the battleship Vanguard in 1947. Ken was also the test pilot on the Grasshopper. There were three protoypes built and the first, G-AWRP, can be seen in The Helicopter Museum in Weston-Super-Mare. No production models were built and the project was abandoned in 1975. It's not immediately obvious from this photo that there were contra-rotating main rotors and no tail rotor.
Cierva_Grasshopper.JPG
C16's interesting example piqued my curiosity and I was apt to look for some more detail as to why this project was abandoned.

A potted history of the Cierva company helps to ger some background...

https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Cierva_Autogiro_Co
Rotorcraft Ltd. was reconstituted as the Cierva Rotorcraft Ltd, subsidiary of The Cierva Autogyro Co, and work commenced on the new "Grasshopper" Mk.III which was based on the dynamic systems of the earlier aircraft, but with a new four-seat fuselage incorporating a slim tailboom with a fin and rudder and powered by two 135hp Rolls-Royce Continental O-300 piston engines. This was designated CR.LTH-1 (otherwise known as the CR-Twin) and the first aircraft, G-AWRP, first flew in 1969 followed by G-AXFM (GB-2) later that year, and a third pre-production machine, G-AZAU (GB-3) in mid-1971. This latter aircraft was fitted with 210hp Continental IO-360-D engines, and the production variants were to be the CR.420 with 210hp Continental TSIO-360-A engines and the CR.640 with 320hp Continental Tiara T6-320 engines. Development was eventually abandoned in 1975 due to lack of further financial backing.
As ever, the lack of lucre, seems to have been the primary reason.

https://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_en ... hopper.php
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Re: Piston engined helicopters...

#8 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Feb 26, 2022 4:15 pm

This twin engined piston heavy lift helicopter from the 1950's was an interesting machine.

chrome_screenshot_1645891849448.png

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_CH-37_Mojave
The CH-37 was one of the last heavy helicopters to use piston engines, which were larger, heavier and less powerful than the turboshaft engines subsequently employed in later military helicopters. This accounted for the type's fairly short service life, all being withdrawn from service by the late 1960s, replaced in Army service by the distantly related CH-54 Tarhe and in the Marine Corps by the CH-53 Sea Stallion.

Four CH-37Bs were deployed to Vietnam in September 1965 to assist in the recovery of downed U.S. aircraft, serving in this role from Marble Mountain Air Facility until May 1967.They were very successful at this role, recovering over US$7.5 million worth of equipment, some of which was retrieved from behind enemy lines. The CH-37 was also used to recover film capsules descending from space by parachute
.




Risky stuff!
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Re: Piston engined helicopters...

#9 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sun Feb 27, 2022 9:15 am

Recently restored at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson.

chrome_screenshot_1645953161592.png
www.pimaair.org

Really interesting catalogue of aircraft.
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Re: Piston engined helicopters...

#10 Post by PHXPhlyer » Sun Feb 27, 2022 6:31 pm

Lifted from The Place That Shall Not Be Named. [-X :D



On August 27, 2019, about 1716 Pacific daylight time, a Bell 47G-4A helicopter, N6064H, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near North Las Vegas, Nevada. The pilot and a passenger were not injured. The helicopter was operated as a Part 91 personal flight. According to the pilot, he purchased the helicopter in August 2018 and had flown it only twice. On what would have been his third flight, the pilot was air taxiing about 40 knots when he observed that the engine was not generating enough power to keep the rotor speed in the green arc of the tachometer, so he terminated the flight. The pilot reported that witnesses informed him the engine was backfiring during the hovering. The pilot sought assistance from an acquaintance who professed to be a commercial pilot with 3,000 hours helicopter flight experience, and 300 hours flight experience in Bell 47 helicopters. On the day of the accident, the pilot and the acquaintance cleaned and reinstalled the sparkplugs. They then repositioned the helicopter to a helipad with the intent to run the engine and hover over the helipad. The pilot stated that he lifted the helicopter to a hover, and it was difficult to control. He transferred the flight controls to the passenger, believing that he had more flight experience in the helicopter model. The passenger acknowledged that he had the flight controls. According to the pilot, the helicopter “rapidly tipped and tracked backwards to our right toward the parking lot.” Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspectors interviewed the passenger, during which he admitted to making false statements of being a certificated pilot. A review of FAA records confirmed that the passenger did not possess a pilot certificate. Review of this security video reveals that, shortly after takeoff to a hover, the helicopter drifted aft, banked left, and yawed to the right. The tail rotor impacted a fuel cart about the same time that the main rotor impacted the ground. The helicopter then rolled onto its left side. The pilot and passenger exited through the right door with assistance from first responders. Examination of the airframe revealed no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Examination of the engine revealed that the No. 1 cylinder inner and outer intake valve springs were fractured and had collapsed, which reduced the height of the springs.

PP

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Re: Piston engined helicopters...

#11 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Feb 28, 2022 7:24 pm

The passenger must have a screw loose, mentally broken in the same way that the collapsed cylinder valve springs were mechanically so, to have taken control of the helicopter which he clearly had no ability to control at all!

That video reminded me of this fellow who bought his helicopter and attempted to fly it without any training whatsoever! The result was not unexpected!

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Re: Piston engined helicopters...

#12 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Feb 28, 2022 7:39 pm

Dennis Kenyon, used to be make the Schweizer do the most incredible manouevres. I had the pleasure of meeting and talking to him after a display at a local airfield. What a lovely chap he was.

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